


Day 6 - Artist

by AlphaWolfAl



Series: IgNyx Week 2019 [6]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: M/M, Nyx is a tattoo artist, Tattoos, The prompt said AU, but this is not an AU, it's the same AU as all the other IgNyx stuff for this week, well it's not it's own AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2020-08-14 04:57:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20186644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlphaWolfAl/pseuds/AlphaWolfAl
Summary: It was no surprise to Ignis to discover his boyfriend was an artist shortly after they'd started dating.





	Day 6 - Artist

It was no surprise to Ignis to discover his boyfriend was an artist shortly after they'd started dating.

And now, with the world ending and Ignis blind, he appreciates being able to feel his lover's art.

How is that possible, you ask?

Tattoos.

Ignis has been slowly letting his lover lay ink under the skin of his body, anywhere his suit covers. He's not ready yet to make that step into displaying the art. It's personal.

Each tattoo is based on Ignis's life, the people he cares about. He's never even told Nyx who each is for, but some of them are certainly obvious enough that the Glaive has guessed, but he never says anything about it and Nyx never asks.

The way Galahdans traditionally do tattoos, with black ink and a small hand-driven set of needles like metal painbrushes, is laborious, it is painful, and it is thrilling and a true honor to feel.

Since reuniting it has been four years. In that four years Ignis has designed seven tattoos.

The first is a stylized fishing rod and fish, placed on his left upper arm with the line of the rod wrapping around his arm three times, in the spaces between the coils of line are the words 'Walk Tall'. That is the only time Nyx asks about the tattoo's meaning.

“Did His Majesty enjoy fishing?” The Glaive sounds amused at the idea.

Iggy heaves a soft sigh.

“No. Not King Regis, anyway.”

Nyx makes a soft sound of realization, and after that he doesn't ask again.

The second, for himself on his lover's recommendation after the first one, is a full back of heavily feathered wings that took weeks of long sessions straddling a chair with his lover pressed close behind him to complete.

They both make gentle jokes about the proximity and position.

His other bicep is taken by a heavily stylized eagle, rising like a phoenix from a shield laying on a bed of simplified flowers, if you look close they are Irises and Gladioli.

When he brings his lover the drawing of this one, done kindly by the Glaive's son who is complicit in the creation of it, Nyx laughs softly and hums a soft sound of understanding.

In a few months he's already come up with a new design. The outside of his entire right leg is marked by stylized roses dropping in a lazy floating path and varying degrees of wholeness from a howling wolf head on his thigh that breaks into the flowers at the bottom. There are thorny stems wrapped around his thigh and calf visible through the falling flowers.

When he describes this one to his lover the older man outright laughs.

“I don't even have to ask about this one.”

“I wouldn't have told you anyway.”

They both laugh and then begin.

There's a gap between that tattoo and the next. But he's making plans, carefully working with his lover's son to design the next one.

The next design is a stylized lizard wrapped around a stem of rounded desert flowers. The lizard rests around his ankle and the stem of flowers takes up the length of Ignis's left calf.

Nyx makes a curious noise but doesn't ask.

It's very soon after that one that Iggy finally decides on an appropriate design for the next.

A stylized Chocobo, poised in dance rather than combat, with the silhouette of a camera pointed at it.

This time Nyx outright laughs again, pats the spot on Ignis's thigh they've prepped for the tattoo.

“This one might as well have his name on it.”

“I'm aware. He's rather foolish sometimes, I'd hate to have him have any doubts.”

Nyx's hand smooths tenderly over his thigh with a soft hum and begins his work.

It takes him nearly a year to work out the details of the final one, he works on it alone, tapping to himself on his desk as he formulates the idea. His memory of things, of how they look, is fading. He clings to that memory with these tattoos and this one has to be perfect.

When he finally brings the idea to his lover he can hear the other man sniffle and tear up as he describes it.

Over his heart a pair of crossed blades. One his own dagger, the other his lover's kukri. It's simple, he laughs at himself.

“I toyed with so many more complex designs. But this is perfect. It's easy to be us. Simple is better.”

Nyx takes a shaky breath.

“You really know what to say to make a guy feel special.”

Ignis sits still while his lover preps his chest for the tattooing, and when they begin he relishes the feeling of the blades coming together on his skin.

After that he has no more plans for tattoos, but wants more all the same.

When he overhears their healer and Nyx's son talking about getting matching tattoos, the blond man offering to do them himself, having learned from his adoptive father years ago, Ignis cuts into the conversation.

“Perhaps we should all agree on a design. We have become something of a family. Perhaps this is our... crest of sorts.”

The large blond laughs and claps him on the shoulder.

“Great idea, Iggy. We can get Nyx's take on it too. He's as much part of this messy family as any of us.”

Ignis laughs and leans into the touch a bit.

“A wonderful idea.”

And they do talk to Nyx about it, and Gladiolus, and Prompto. Eventually they come to a consensus after a particularly astute suggestion from Prompto.

A heavily stylized sunrise.

The thing they've all been fighting for, together.

Ignis has this one placed somewhere remarkably visible, the wrist of his right hand, rising where the arch of simplified mountains would hide beneath his glove but the sun would still peek through.

Prompto tells Iggy he's getting his on his arm, rising over the barcode.

Gladio says his is on his chest, rising from the thick ridge of his scar.

Their healer, Ali, tells him in a soft whisper that hers is on the back of her neck, visible with her hair just growing back with mountains across her shoulders.

Aleric, Nyx's son, proudly proclaims his own is on his chest, rising over the surgery scar there.

Nyx, having his done by his son, takes a slow breath before telling Ignis that his own sunrise is on the stump of his arm, rising over the tight webbing of scars there.

Ignis feels the sun tattooed onto his skin, knows his comrades, and his lover, feel the same thing. It brings them closer together, and all because Nyx turned out to be an artist.


End file.
